The Darker Side

'I'll bet.' Atkins turns to me. 'And you're Agent Barrett.'

His eyes dance over my scars, something I'm long used to by now. I don't mind certain subsets of the population examining my face. Homicide cops like Atkins, for example. His interest is genuine and quizzical. He looks, shrugs inside, and lets it go, no disgust or horror evident. Most physicians do the same. Small children run the gamut from 'is that your real face?' to, in the case of nine-year-old boys,

'wow, cool!'

'Thanks for meeting us this late,' I say, shaking the hand he's offered.

'Hey, anything that will help me crack this case.' His eyes go flat, expressionless. 'This one bothers me.'

He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't have to. You see a lot of dead people, doing what we do. None of it is good, but some of the corpses become ghosts.

'Tell us about it,' Alan says.

Atkins inclines his head. 'I can tell you about her death, and I will, but first I thought I'd take you to see a man who can tell you about her life.'

'Who?' I ask.

'Father Yates. Catholic priest in the Valley who almost literally pulled Rosemary out of the gutter.'

Alan looks at me and raises an inquiring eyebrow.

'In for a penny, in for a pound,' I quip, using humor to push aside my exhaustion. I gesture to Atkins's car. 'You drive. You can fill us in on the way there.'

IT OCCURS TO ME THAT American carmakers are unlikely to go out of business as long as police forces exist. The car is a fixed-up Crown Vic, no longer black and white, just black and sleek with a growl under the hood. It's dark out now, the moon is up, and we're headed back down the 118 freeway again. It's rush- hour light at the moment; there are other cars around us, but the distance and speed are companionable. The sky is cloudless and the moon is full. Silver, not yellow. It makes some of the rocky hills in the distance look like they have snow on top.

I'm in the front seat with Atkins, Alan is in the back.

'Rosemary Sonnenfeld. Single white female, age thirty-four, fivefive, approx. one hundred twenty-five pounds, in good physical shape. She was found dead in her apartment with a bag of coke on the nightstand next to her. On first glance the thought was that Rosemary had reverted to type. She was an ex-prostitute, ex-porn girl, ex-coke and sex addict. I thought she'd probably decided to get high and maybe was a little out of practice on her coke usage and overdosed.'

'Makes sense,' Alan says. 'What changed your mind?'

'A closer look. Tox screen showed she had enough coke in her system to kill a horse, but she'd also been stabbed in the side.'

'Interesting,' I allow, not yet willing to give up data on Lisa Reid.

'Yeah. Then, of course, there was the cross. Silver cross, about two inches high and one inch wide. Engraved with a skull and crossbones and the number one forty-two on the back. It had been inserted into her.'

The same as Lisa Reid, I think. And one forty-two? Lisa was one forty- three.

'If all that wasn't enough to call it a homicide,' Atkins continues,

'the icing on the cake is that the cross was inserted postmortem.'

'Yeah, that's pretty definitive,' Alan says.

'Then there's Father Yates.'

'What do you mean?' I ask.

'Yates is a priest who does a lot of good, but he's no fool. He made Rosemary do a piss test once a month at a local clinic.'

'Really?' I ask, surprised. 'Sounds like a pretty distrustful priest.'

Atkins smiles. 'Father Yates is a realist. He's a true believer, and he does good work. But he has a three strikes rule. If he takes you in and helps you get clean, you get three relapses and then you're gone.'

'So I take it Rosemary had stayed clean.'

'For over four years. I checked her record. Nothing during that time. She'd held a steady job, she volunteered at the church every weekend. Everything says that she really had gone on the straight and narrow.'

'I can see why this one got to you,' I say.

Most people think that cops are cynics. There is truth to that stereotype. We see the worst that people can do or be. It makes us . . . attentive. But we're people too. Most of those I've known in law enforcement, however hardened they may be, still harbor a willingness to believe that someone could--maybe--turn their life around. A bad guy or girl could--maybe--wake up one day and decide to become a good guy or girl. It's just that--a maybe--but it never really goes away. No one can live with the idea that man is basically evil and stay happy.

'Yeah,' Atkins says. 'Anyway. It was a homicide, but everything dead-ended. Forensics came up with nada. We couldn't find any past known associates that were still alive. Ten days later, no viable suspects.' He shakes his head in frustration. 'I've been doing this for a while, Agent Barrett. I know when a case is going to go cold. This had that feel to it--until Agent Washington called me.'

'Was there any evidence of sexual violation? Any ejaculate near the body?'

'No.'

'How was her body positioned? Were her legs together or apart?'

'Together. Arms folded over her chest.'

'Interesting,' I murmur.

'What?' Atkins asks.

'Our other victim was a transsexual. Rosemary was an ex-porn actress and sex addict. Based on our victims, I would have expected a sexual component to these crimes, but it's been absent both times. The only commonality we know of is the cross. Strange.'

'What's it mean?' Alan asks, prodding me.

I shake my head. 'I don't know yet. Let's see what the priest can tell us.'

'ROSEMARY WAS ONE OF MY favorite successes. One Rosemary could make up for ten failures. You understand?'

Father Yates is a very fit fiftyish. He has rough-hewn, handsome features, close-cropped salt and pepper hair, and dark, intelligent eyes. They are what I used to call 'priest eyes' to my friends. Too full of kindness to get self- righteous with, too full of an understanding of the ways of sin to hide anything from. I grew up Catholic, though I am long lapsed, and I recognize the type of priest Yates is: hands-on, approachable, devout without being out of touch with the realities of life.

Perhaps if more priests were like him, I wouldn't have lapsed. He's a tall man, about six foot five, thin without being gangly. He wears a short-sleeve shirt with the white collar at the throat. His hands are restless. This is an energetic priest, a man of action. Working for God, to him, means working for God. I like him.

'I do understand, Father. We enjoy similar victories, sometimes, and they make up for the failures. Mostly.'

Those priest eyes fix on mine and I feel the old, familiar flush of guilt. He knows, he knows. He knows I masturbate sometimes with the help of a vibrator. He knows I take a secret pleasure at making a man come with my mouth.

Sweet Jesus--and there's another one, blasphemy--I thought I was past all this!

I know, at some level, that it's all in my head. Father Yates is no mind reader. I even recognize the phenomenon; put a civilian in an interrogation room with me, and he'll feel exactly the same way.

'Yes,' he replies, nodding. 'I imagine there are a lot of parallels in what we do.'

'I'll bet,' I agree. 'We both know about the dark side of people. You've probably heard about most of the crimes I've seen.'

He waves a hand. 'I've heard everything in confession. Pedophilia. Incest. Rape. Murder. The difference, I suppose, is in our methods.'

'I jail them, you try and set them free.'

It comes out sounding a little bit sarcastic. I hadn't intended it to. He gives a faint, amused smile. 'And which do you think is more effective?'